


Checkmate

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Futurefic, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-03
Updated: 2006-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 07:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/353963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenny, Conner, and Kendall confront Lionel's latest attempt to cause trouble. And the problem of Lionel is settled once and for all. Another in the 'Alternate Universe' series of ficlets detailing the adventures of the Kent-Luthor children. Takes place just prior to Kenny's party in 'Good Parents.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checkmate

## Checkmate

by Magdelena

<http://members.cox.net/magdelena1969>

* * *

_Summary_ : Kenny, Conner, and Kendall confront Lionel's latest attempt to cause trouble. And the problem of Lionel is settled once and for all. Another in the 'Alternate Universe' series of ficlets detailing the adventures of the Kent-Luthor children. Takes place just prior to Kenny's party in "Good Parents." 

_Disclaimer_ : I do not own any of the characters herein (only the plot). The characters of Clark Kent, Superman and Lex Luthor are the property of their creators and DC Comics. Smallville is owned by Gough/Millar Inc and the WB Network TV. I am publishing my fanfiction writings only for my own selfish desire to be a part of their world and receive nothing in return. 

_Author's Note_ : Spoilers all the way through Season Four, but selective use of Smallville and DC Comics canon. So pretty much, yeah, it's AU. Thanks to Sev1970 and The Clex Factor for betaing for me. 

* * *

"Well, hello Grandfather." 

Lionel spun around, stepping back against the just-closed door reflexively. He had returned to his colonial estate in the Hamptons, planning to have a relaxing evening while preparing the final touches of his latest scheme. After over thirty years of speculation, his suspicions had been proven right, and though his goals weren't the same as they would have been back in his prime, Lionel refused to let this opportunity go by without at least attempting to make a few strategic gains. Unfortunately, apparently he wasn't the only one. 

It seemed he wasn't as alone in his home office as he had previously thought. Lionel's youngest grandson was casually lounging behind his antique mahogany desk, long legs kicked up on the corner, feet casually crossed, blowing out a perfect smoke ring from what appeared to be one of Lionel's Cuban cigars. 

"Kenneth? How surprising to see you here," Lionel commented, attempting to control his instinctive reaction to the most-unexpected visit. Something was _very_ wrong. "Why so formal? Whatever happened to that wretched 'Grandpapa' moniker that you children seem to prefer to call me?" 

"Seems a bit more appropriate to be formal considering the reason for our visit," came a feminine voice from another corner of the shadowy room, the harsh, derisive tone rather ominous coming from someone who typically was as conciliatory as the young woman in question. 

Lionel's eyes widened, and he looked over towards the bar to see his granddaughter pouring a drink for herself as his other grandson saluted him with his own glass. This was _definitely_ not good. 

"And Kendall and Conner as well? To what do I owe the pleasure of your companies?" 

"They're merely here for moral support," Kenny answered, nodding his head toward his siblings. "I'm here to invite you to my seventeenth birthday party. Papa's rented out one of the hottest clubs in Metropolis for me. It should be a great time, and we'd just love to have you there," he added, his voice dripping sarcasm as he drawled out the invitation, using the crystal ashtray on Lionel's desk to casually tap the ashes off the end of his cigar. 

"I'll try to clear my calendar," Lionel answered cautiously, feeling more and more unsettled the longer this visit lasted. 

"I'm sure you will," Kenny answered, cocking his head to the side and fixing Lionel with a deadly smile that chilled the elder Luthor to what was left of his soul, "especially since I know that you're having an extra-special present designed for me." 

Lionel froze momentarily. In all of the year-long planning and scheming he had done since finally uncovering incontrovertible proof that his son-in-law was none other than the alien protector of Metropolis, he had somehow managed to forget to factor in that during that time the young man in front of him had matured from a brooding, often angry adolescent into an astute, intuitive businessman who apparently was quite the game-player himself. 

Before he could formulate an answer, Kenny continued. 

"It really is breathtaking. In fact, it's so irresistible that I couldn't resist liberating it from the store early so I could enjoy wearing it." Kenny lifted his left hand from behind the desk, the red stone of the ring shimmering in the light. He looked at it admiringly as he continued speaking. "I'm not usually much for jewelry, though it does look nice on me, don't you think?" 

For just a moment, Lionel felt a shred of hope - hope that was quickly dashed as soon as he realized that the stone was not, in fact, glowing on Kenny's finger, nor were the younger man's eyes alight with the red sparkles that were so easily evident in his son-in-law's eyes when he was 'drugged' by the red meteor rock. This was _not_ a development that Lionel had anticipated. 

A thousand possible moves went through Lionel's mind, each summarily rejected. He had truly been out-maneuvered at last. 

Conner came to Lionel's side, pressing a drink into his hand. "You'll need it," he murmured with a snort before returning to Kendall's side and settling himself on the arm of the chair Kendall had taken. 

Kenny chuckled darkly at Conner's comment before his expression turned icy, all trace of amusement gone in an instant. "Sorry to disappoint you, Lionel, but you won't be making a tool out of me, Conner, or even Kendall today, or any other day." 

Lionel couldn't help but look toward Kendall in shock at the implication. 

"Lionel, Lionel," Kenny chided, clucking his tongue. "You're slipping, old man. You should know better than to act without all the facts, and Kendall's true parentage wasn't a fact you were aware of, was it?" 

"But how?" Lionel stammered out, finally finding his voice at last. 

"That does not concern you," Kenny stated dismissively. "The only important thing you need to know is that all three of us share Dad's unique abilities. But regretfully, for your purposes," he continued, a wry smile twisting his lips, "Papa's mutations have apparently genetically overwritten the rather unfortunate weakness to the meteor rocks that Dad possesses." 

Kenny sighed, again looking at the ring on his hand almost wistfully. "It really is a shame. It would have been kind of fun during my reckless years to get high off of this stone, and go a little wild." 

At this admission, his grandson paused dramatically, and Lionel felt his gut tighten with dread. Why after all these years of secrecy was he being handed such information so easily? Hundreds of inexplicable things were suddenly explainable, and the implication of why he was being allowed this knowledge now was utterly chilling. Denial might be his only option if he intended to live through this meeting. 

"While I appreciate this little bit of admittedly intriguing family history, I truly have no idea what you are talking about, Kenneth. If you are trying to imply that I had some sinister intention with creating your gift..." 

"I'm not implying anything, Grandfather," Kenny interrupted, standing from his chair and moving around the edge of the desk slowly as he spoke. "I _know_ what you intended. I'm not stupid, and I know you aren't either. You know _exactly_ how strong and powerful our dad is, you know that he's Superman, and therefore you can surmise what special abilities we might be blessed with. You might have even figured out that Conner or I am Superboy, and since my earlier admission about Kendall's parentage, that she is Supergirl as well. You'd be absolutely right in those assumptions." 

Kenny continued to take menacing strides towards Lionel, eventually backing his grandfather up until the older man's back was against the far wall. 

"The only thing I'm not sure of is if your goal was to use us as bargaining chips to get Dad to do your bidding, or if you intended to use one of us to destroy him and take his place. Either way, it doesn't really matter. Because as I mentioned before, we _do_ share every ability that Dad has - strength, speed, invulnerability, _heat vision_... And unlike Dad, I wasn't primarily raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent. And thus, I am not bound by such a restrictive set of morals as he is. 

"You like to think that I'm the most 'Luthor' amongst my siblings, and I am," Kenny stated proudly, throwing his head back and laughing bitterly before his hard and cold gaze once again locked with Lionel's. "But I'm also the most 'El'. As in Ken-El, youngest son of the House of El, last of the royal houses of Krypton. Dad hasn't been very forthcoming with sharing information about Krypton with the world for a reason. Kryptonian peace was maintained in part by some very old customs that Dad doesn't necessarily approve of. Personally, I think they're brilliant. And those very customs I'm speaking of entitle me to take vengeance on the one who attempted to kill my birth-father." Kenny leaned forward, and stage whispered in Lionel's ear. "That would be you." 

In the moment it took for Lionel to gasp, Kenny had already sped across the room, a barely-perceptible blur the only evidence he had been cornering Lionel menacingly only a second ago. The young man dropped nonchalantly into the chair next to his sister and smiled almost serenely. "It would be quite easy, you know. All it would take is one burst of my heat vision and you would immolate into dust. One 'super' breath, and your ashes would be scattered so far apart that no one would ever find a trace of the great Lionel Luthor, and my conscience would be clear because I would have sought and achieved righteous vengeance." 

Lionel stood for several long minutes watching each of his grandchildren, their expressions never faltering. He truly had no idea how to respond to Kenny's threats. His only possible chance was finding a weakness. Looking beseechingly at both Conner and Kendall, Lionel made his final gambit. "Surely, you wouldn't let him...?" 

"I don't want him to," Kendall answered honestly, shrugging her shoulders, "but it is his right as the youngest. And the only other alternative is to allow Dad to Kiss you." 

"To kiss...?" 

"The Kiss of Lethe - one of those powers that no one knows about - yet. It makes the recipient forget just about anything we want them to," Conner explained. "However, it cannot be performed on someone who shares familial blood. So none of us could do it to you. It would have to be Dad. And you've had the pleasure of kissing a few too many of Papa's lovers in the past, we won't allow him to suffer the indignity of having to know that he shared Dad, even in that small way, with you. So yes, the alternative of letting Kenny kill you, it's a viable one." 

"The only reason you're not already dead is because of me," Kendall added quietly. She smiled at Lionel softly, and sighed. She shook her head in a way so reminiscent of Lillian that it almost felt like time had turned back for a moment. "I'd like to think that I'm a pretty good judge of character, and that there's something left in you that realizes that you may have been wrong about the way you raised Papa, and that you may have somehow changed. However, this latest stunt of yours does make me wonder." Kendall's gaze narrowed, and Lionel was suddenly reminded of what a formidable foe his Lillian had always been. "Honestly, Grandpapa? How stupid do you think we are? Did you really think we didn't know that you had a stash of red kryptonite? I'm very disappointed in you. It really makes me wonder if I was right to give you the benefit of the doubt, to believe that you weren't trying to steal Papa's memories and make him back into your perfect little Luthor heir when you had him thrown into Belle Reve and forced him to undergo ECT." 

"That it wasn't you that was drugging Papa to make him look insane," Conner continued. "That it was Helen, not you, that engineered the crash that almost killed him. That it was someone else who ordered his Scotch poisoned while you were imprisoned." 

"That it was Edge who planned our great-grandparents' deaths," Kendall added icily. "That it was someone else who created a truth serum made with the core of the red meteor rock, and hired a college kid to slip it to our dad's drink in a feeble attempt to expose his secrets." 

Kenny snorted into the silence that followed Kendall's final accusation. The one they knew for sure was undeniably true. "Yeah, because of course, you're totally innocent of all of that." Kenny raised two fingers, wiggling them in Lionel's line of sight. "You have two choices, Lionel. You can take my invitation, and show up at my birthday party - with a more appropriate gift - and elect to be a part of this family, something that our fathers have never tried to deny you, despite your past relationship with both of them. Or, you can run." 

Kenny stood from his chair, and without missing a beat, his older siblings echoed his movements. "If you _do_ elect to come, you will make your peace with our fathers at the party. I'll let you decide what to tell them, but remember that we will be listening, and no one, not even the great Lionel Luthor will be allowed to hurt either of our fathers ever again. They will never know of our visit - unless we choose to tell them. If you don't show up at the party, I'll assume that you plan to run, and I can assure you that you can never run quite as far, or as fast, as any of us. We will find you, and I will destroy you," Kenny finished, stopping only inches from Lionel again. He crushed the still-lit cigar in his hand. When he opened his palm, it was to let the miniscule dust that remained drift to the floor through his fingertips. "Think on it good and hard, Grandpapa, and thank your lucky stars that we are weakened by our Papa's 'emotions', because if we weren't, you wouldn't even have this choice." Kenny wiped the remaining dust off his palm by brushing his hand on Lionel's jacket. "You'd already be dead." 

Kenny had almost made it to the office door before Lionel found his voice to speak. "Kenneth?" 

"Yes?" 

Lionel let out a shuddering breath. He was truly too old for this crap. "I would be delighted to accept your invitation. You will find the remaining meteor rock - kryptonite - in the vault in my villa in Rome. I will no longer have a need for it. I trust you know how to dispose of it." 

"Of course," Kenny answered with a grin, removing the ring from his finger and crushing it to dust as well. "I look forward to seeing you at my party." 

* * *

"Nice job, little bro!" Conner complimented, once the trio had safely supersped out of Lionel's estate, had flown back to Metropolis, and had buckled in Conner's car for the ride home. "We'll have to get Tim and Dick's help with removing the red-k from the villa." 

"We're going to have to be discreet though so Papa and Dad don't suspect. We don't want to worry them," Kendall advised. "Papa's still so freaked about the whole alternate timeline thing." 

"I still think this has something to do with that mess. Grandpapa's been perfectly content all these years to do nothing, and then all of a sudden, out of the blue, he knows Dad's secret identity?" Conner asked, not truly expecting an answer to his question. 

"I'm just glad that Kenny got wind of Lionel's plan," Kendall said quietly before turning to speak to Kenny, who was lounging on the back seat. "Anyway, so where's the real red-k ring? That was a nice touch having a copy made, Ken." 

"Oh, that was the real ring," Kenny admitted with a grin. 

"Huh?" 

"But it couldn't..." 

"Remember seeing pictures of this?" Kenny asked, removing another ring from his pocket, this one with a bright green stone. Both of his siblings involuntarily shuddered, and started spluttering out protests, causing Kenny to chuckle darkly. "Don't freak. It won't hurt you. This is the ring Papa created before he and Dad got together, when he thought he'd need a way eventually to control the 'alien', before he realized that his dick was just as powerful a weapon." 

**"KENNY!"**

"Shut up, Kendall," Kenny bit out. "You know damn good and well it's true. If Kon-El hadn't gone back in time from that alternate future, none of this would have ever existed. You and I wouldn't have existed. Dad is such a goddamned do-gooder that without Papa to balance him he would have tried to lovingly force the whole world into his way of thinking, becoming just the type of creature Jor-El wanted him to be. And Papa would have become just like Lionel." 

"Where did you get that?" Conner asked calmly into the silence that had settled after Kenny's last statement. 

"Don't you remember? When I was a kid? And Papa, Dad and I had that adventure in the Wardrobe?" 

"The Harry Potter thing? You're fucking with us! That was REAL?" Kendall asked incredulously. 

Conner shrugged. "We always thought you just made it up. And that Papa and Dad went along with it." 

"This from the man who remembers two universes," Kenny teased. 

"Touch." 

Kenny sighed, looking out of the window, staring unseeingly at the Metropolis landscape as it slid by his window. The last traces of what Kenny kiddingly called his 'Luthor persona' slipped away as the young man reminisced. "We really went there, all right. Papa helped Severus Snape create a potion that used the green kryptonite, and then Harry Potter used it to kill Voldemort. Right before we left, Ron Weasley offered the ring back to me, as a souvenir of sorts. He didn't have a clue that the ring was supposed to have ill effects on us, and it was safely tucked in the lead-lined box Papa had kept it in, so I didn't think anything of it. One night, when I was fifteen, I decided to see just how it felt to have a true weakness. I opened the box for the first time, and nothing happened. At first I thought maybe all the power had been sucked out by making the potion - nullifying it the way the refining process does. So since I knew, thanks to Papa's clean-up efforts, that I wouldn't be able to find any more of the green-k, I broke into Grandpapa's and found his stash of red-k." 

"You could have hurt yourself!" 

"That was the point, at the time," Kenny admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "Same as when Dad took off that summer. I wanted to get high. I..." 

"That's the night Papa caught you smoking pot. The same night we all took off for dinner in Mexico." 

"Yeah. I don't ever want to forget what I was like that night, because if I do, then I might actually become the guy I was pretending to be in there with Lionel," Kenny admitted sheepishly. "Anyway, I found the stash, and it had no effect on me at all." 

"And you never told us?" Kendall chided, though it was obvious by her tone that she was merely concerned for her little brother's well-being. 

"A guy's gotta have some secrets, right? I was going to tell you guys, but it just wasn't important. If it was something that could have hurt you, sure I would have told you, but it wasn't." 

"And we're really going to keep all of this from the Dads?" Conner asked. 

"For now, yes. They deserve a little peace. Let them deal with the whole alternate timeline thing for a bit. This is something we can, and did, handle," Kenny stated. Suddenly, his face split into a grin. "Besides, I think that it's much more important that they learn about certain relationships before this comes out." 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," both Kendall and Conner replied almost simultaneously, both grinning widely. 

"Right, sure, whatever," Kenny snorted dismissively. "So, did I tell you guys yet that I have this awesome idea for a new Gotham supervillain?" 

**THE END**

* * *

If anyone is interested, I have a yahoo group to update you on when and where you can find my stories. Sign up at - http: //groups.yahoo.com/group/magdelenas_menagerie/ 


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